Music Review: Mandy Moore "Walk Me Home"

Walk Me Home
Album: I Wanna Be With You
Year: 2000

Mandy Moore makes a move on her crush in the coy "Walk Me Home."

Sparkling strings open the single, setting an enchanted tone. The single starts with the chorus. In it, she bats her eyelashes and asks if he would to like accompany her during her walk from school. She doesn't want to be by herself. She asks if he would hold her hand and they would go to a private spot. It would be their paradise.

"Baby would you walk me home/I don't want to go all the way alone/Baby would you walk with me home/Baby would you take my hand/Come with me now to our special land/Baby would you walk with me home."

In the first verse, she and her crush are spooning. However, as she slowly opens her eyes and feels around the bed, she realizes it was a dream. But it felt so real.

"It's three a.m. and you're on my mind once again/I must have been dreaming/I thought I felt your heartbeat just then."

In the pre-chorus, she fantasizes about having a relationship with him. She would be his long-term girlfriend. They would be high school sweethearts and voted cutest couple for senior year mock elections. Then, they would go on to college, graduate together, get married and have a couple kids. She says she is trusting him and will open herself up to him.

"Then I wondered how it would be/If I was your lady and you were my friend/I would put my heart in your hands/And it would never end."

The chorus is sung again.

She sings the word "home" and stretches it out. She ends the solo with "la la la la."

In the second verse, she is now going out with him. He gave her a picture of him to keep, which she puts to her heart every chance she gets. He's everything she's ever wanted. She's overjoyed that they are a couple.

"I hold your picture next to my heart all the time/Oh yeah baby/You're my dream come true so glad you're mine."

The pre-chorus is sung again.

The chorus is sung again.

In the bridge, she says she fights temptation to not touch his shoulder or hug him all the time. She tells him she will show much she loves him in ways other girls couldn't.

Every day and night I want to hold you (hold you)/Understand that I am going to love you/In my own special way."

The chorus is sung twice.

Moore sings the word "home" again and asks if he would to join her on her daily walk back home after school.

"Home/Baby, would we walk me home."

As a teenager, Moore still sees love as the most perfect thing in the world. She's learned from television and magazines that girls need to be forward with guys. If she does, she will have the best relationship ever. She's the modern teenaged girl, going after what she wants. Yet, she still has schoolgirl dreams that he's her one and only.

In "Walk Me Home," Moore is in puppy love. However, like most pop songs from the late 90s teenybop boom, there is a suggestive tone to it. She is far more aware of sex ("special land") as most 'tweens are nowadays, given the onslaught of sexual images on television and in print. In that sense, the single accurately portrays how young teens girls think.

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